The Ethnic Composition of Families in Russia in 1989: Insights into the Soviet “Nationalities Policy”

A sample from the 1989 Soviet census is used to study the ethnic composition of families in the Russian Federation on the eve of the breakup of the Soviet Union. The aim is to gain insight into the consequences of the Soviet “nationalities policy” through examining the marriage patterns of different ethnic groups and the nature of the relations between these groups. The analysis is based on general log‐linear models. The main findings are: there was a relatively well‐pronounced tendency toward endogamy; Russians were the least endoga‐mous, while Chechens were the most endoga‐mous among the 11 ethnic groups included in the analysis; “zones of attraction” related to exogamy were well discernible, the two most pronounced being within the Eastern Slav and Turkic groups; testing for cohort effects revealed a decrease in endogamy when older and middle cohorts were compared, while the differences between middle and younger cohorts were in many cases not statistically significant.